MetroBike is pleased to be celebrating our 10th
anniversary this month.
After many years of publishing academic articles on
bike-sharing while working on my master’s degree with the hope of someone else bringing
bike-share to the shores of the U.S., I became impatient with the wait and knew
I had to be the change I wished to see. So in November 2005, I left the safety
of a municipal job with benefits to found MetroBike in order to foster
bike-sharing’s introduction. MetroBike was the U.S.’s first bike-share
consultancy. My parents thought I was crazy. Looking back, I guess I was.
With MetroBike I’ve had the opportunity to assist in
founding Capital Bikeshare in the Washington, D.C. region where we serve in a
managerial and planning role for two of the system’s municipal owners, having
sited 132 of the service’s stations. I’ve enjoyed returning to Copenhagen – the
city where I first learned about bike-sharing in 1995 – to help the region
modernize the former coin-operated system that helped the world see what
bike-share could be on a large-scale. There have been many other non-profit,
for-profit, academic, and local and federal government clients over the years. Also,
I’ve doubled the size of MetroBike from one to two people – a 100% increase!
While MetroBike isn’t a Fortune 500 company, it’s nice
that a small business can help change the world. Thank you
to MetroBike’s past and present clients and the folks who have believed in me
to bring this crazy little idea of bike-share into their pocket of the world. Thanks
also to the readers of The Bike-sharing Blog and The Bike-sharing World Map. It’s
wonderful to be able to do something that I love in making bikes available to
all for a cleaner and healthier planet. We’re looking forward to the next 10 successful
years.
Sincerely,
Paul DeMaio
Founder and Principal
MetroBike, LLC
Washington, D.C., USA
